Chaienne

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Monday, December 10, 2018

Hi, Friends......My dear next-door neighbor is Jewish....(a rarity around here!)...and so I always try to make him a Hanukkah card. Fortunately for me, Hanukkah lasts all week so I have several days to remember about it and several days to procrastinate and still get the card done before the Festival is complete!! lol.... But although the card was on time...I am just finally getting this posted today!I found these super-pretty Hanukkah napkins at a thrift store sometime back and decoupaged one of them onto cardstock for the card. (You can see my other recent foray into napkin decoupage HERE.)Men don't generally have time for fussy and fancy things, so I kept this card very, very simple and let the napkin do the work. I accented the candle flames with some Sakura Souffle gel pens that really glow against dark backgrounds.

I just love the rough crinkly texture of my imperfect decoupage technique!! lol...I did some stamp surgery on a holiday stamp and mixed the sentiment with "Bright" from a different company. Good thing I used my MISTI (on my second attempt, that is....lol) because it wouldn't stamp right. Turns out the thickness of the two companies' clear stamps is different!! The thicker "Bright" word was preventing the nearby parts of the other words from contacting the paper! I had not ever had that happen before....live and learn, I guess. :)Here's the inside view:

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Hi, Friends......Taking time out from the Coffee Hop to post a Christmas card in non-traditional colors. I realize that not EVERYWHERE gets snow at Christmas so maybe this scene looks a little more like home to some of you. :)

Quite some time ago (I just checked...it was FOUR years ago!!) my crafty pal and coffee enthusiast, D.Ann at D.Ann's Crafting Whims, sent me a coffee prize that included some super-fun "Cafe Presse" napkins. I always wanted to decoupage one onto cardstock to use as a card background and I finally did it....4 years later!!! (I am so ashamed!)

I didn't
want to put too much over the fun coffee press background image, so I tucked doilies around the
edge and placed a simple heat-embossed sentiment strip with lace across the panel. A
few snowflakes add to the wintery feel. I love the crinkly texture of the delicate napkin paper decoupaged onto the card!!

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed seeing my card. It's not a very Christmasy winter image, but this will be made into a Christmas card with the inside sentiments. It's cold and clear today here in Idaho...so winter is on my mind. We don't have very much snow left at the moment, but it is sure crunchy outside!! Stay warm, everyone!!

I stamped the sentiment on the mug itself and thought myself so very clever to have the curvy "wishes" word above the swirly decoration on the mug. Hahaha.....I wasn't clever at all......it just worked out that way!!! Where was I going to put it otherwise??? The sentiment wouldn't work with the words in any other order!! LOL... (Just seeing if you all are awake out there!!)

Making one layer cards and stamping borders are both definitely out of my comfort zone, but it was a lot of fun making this card. A little scary, too, but fun.....just like challenges are supposed to be, right?

I hope you are enjoying the Coffee Lovers Hop. I don't always take the opportunity to participate in it, but this time I was inspired. Thanks for stopping by!!

Monday, December 3, 2018

I couldn't resist joining in this time around so I could use this hilarious AI set that Nichol Spohr sent me in a prize recently. (THANKS, Nichol!!!) Great sentiment and I love the image of the besties enjoying coffee together!! (Talk, talk, talk....!) You can barely detect (amid the saturated colors of the background) that I used a pastel watercolor background for this panel.

The stamped image is BIG and is placed appropriately on a LARGE format card!! Ha.